Red Onion Restaurants

A Westlake Village entrepreneur says he's purchased the Red Onion name in bankruptcy court and will reopen the defunct chain's Thousand Oaks nightclub-restaurant Friday. The unit closed last year along with other Red Onion restaurants throughout the greater Los Angeles area. The chain was operated by International Onion Inc., a West Covina firm that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late 1992.

A Westlake Village entrepreneur says he's purchased the Red Onion name in bankruptcy court and will reopen the defunct chain's Thousand Oaks nightclub-restaurant Friday. The unit closed last year along with other Red Onion restaurants throughout the greater Los Angeles area. The chain was operated by International Onion Inc., a West Covina firm that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late 1992.

Temporary liquor license suspensions for five Red Onion restaurants will begin Thursday under a previously announced settlement of complaints that the chain practiced racial discrimination. Under terms of the settlement, three Red Onions in Santa Ana, Riverside and Palm Desert may not sell liquor for the next 10 days, said the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, while two others--in Lakewood and Fullerton--will be forbidden to serve alcohol for five days.

The Red Onion restaurant in West Covina and nine other Red Onions in the greater Los Angeles area closed for good Monday after their parent company, International Onion, shut down because of financial troubles. International Onion filed for bankruptcy in November, 1992. "The reason for the closure is, principally, no suitable sale of the restaurant could be arranged," said Jeff Coyne, a trustee in charge of selling off the restaurants.

Liquor licenses at five Red Onion restaurants in Southern California will be briefly suspended as a result of a state investigation that confirmed "a pattern of racial discrimination" at the popular chain. "There was a pattern of racial discrimination practiced at various Red Onion premises," said John Thompson, assistant director of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control's southern division.

A paraplegic sued the parent company of the Red Onion restaurants Tuesday, alleging that its Woodland Hills restaurant violates laws requiring accessibility for the handicapped. Evan Somers, who is confined to a wheelchair, said in his Superior Court lawsuit that he went to the Red Onion restaurant in Woodland Hills last month to have dinner and dance. Somers has won several prizes in dance contests for "upper-body" dancing, the lawsuit said.

The lunch crowd streamed into the Red Onion restaurant in Santa Ana, past the lobby sign adorned with bright blue, red and yellow balloons. "The ABC will not allow us to sell alcoholic beverages temporarily," the sign said. "Thank you for your patience." But few of the restaurant's customers were asking why. "Complaints of racial discrimination?

Three owners of Red Onion restaurants that are not associated with the chain owned by Ronald Newman said Friday that they would change the names of their establishments to avoid association with the others. On Thursday, Newman's International Onion Inc. was ordered to pay $375,000 in penalties and fees for more than two dozen alleged health and fire code violations in its 13 restaurants in Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties.

Officials of the Red Onion Restaurants have responded to charges of racial discrimination by hiring a California State University professor to "thoroughly review the dress code and admission policies" of the popular Southland disco chain. The officials have vowed that any instances of blacks and Latinos being unfairly turned away from the establishments will not "happen again."

Officials of Red Onion Restaurants, trying to stem the tide of complaints that they consistently bar minorities from their nightclubs, met with state investigators for the first time "to take a hard look at the problem," the chain's attorney said. News broke last month that the state was investigating complaints from six men--two blacks, two Latinos and two Middle Easterners--that they had been barred from the Red Onion in Santa Ana and given phony explanations.

The Red Onion restaurant chain has closed its 10 remaining locations, but the company's trustee said Tuesday that branches of the chain may soon reopen under individual owners. The remaining branches were shut down Monday, and 900 employees were laid off after a deal fell through to sell the chain's parent company, International Onion Inc. of West Covina, said Jeffrey Coyne, the bankruptcy trustee.

When the Thousand Oaks City Council recently admonished the Red Onion restaurant to clean up its act or face possible revocation of its liquor license, newly appointed manager James Camuso listened. He hired new security guards, met with police and consulted sound engineers about how to muffle the dance floor's raucous rock. And this week, he returned to the City Council to plead for a little mercy--or at least a second chance.

The lights are already down--and the decibel level up--at the Woodland Hills Red Onion by the time Antoinette Flores and her two girlfriends arrive. It is early evening, and the three have come, as they often do, to dance, to meet people, and to party. "It's a place to come and mingle, to enjoy yourself," said Flores, 21, before slurping from a huge container filled with a potent cocktail called Sex on the Beach. "Everybody gets along here really good."

The drinks are cheap. The music is hot. The dance floor is packed. "Dollar Drink Night" and other promotions at the West Covina Red Onion draw hundreds of young adults from throughout the San Gabriel Valley--and beyond--eager to party. On a recent Wednesday, police say it also drew four short-tempered young men, who got into a parking lot argument. At the end, gunshots were fired and one man lay fatally wounded in the chest, another bleeding from a bullet in the stomach.

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn has filed an alcohol abatement lawsuit against The Red Onion restaurant in Woodland Hills, saying police have made many arrests there for the illegal sale of alcoholic drinks to drunken persons and minors. The suit, filed Aug. 27, names the operator, Onion International Inc., doing business as The Red Onion, as well as property owner Roland Sahm. Hahn said the restaurant at 6424 Canoga Ave.

Samuel Crawford, 25, a black who alleged last month that he was "humiliated and disgusted" when he was turned away from the Santa Ana Red Onion, has filed a $2-million racial discrimination lawsuit against the restaurant chain. The suit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, alleges that Crawford's civil rights were violated by an "ongoing and continuing policy . . . to deny entry by members of racial minorities."

In the wake of patrons' charges of racial discrimination, officials of Red Onion Restaurants met with Santa Ana and county officials Thursday and vowed that any instances of blacks and Latinos being turned away from the popular disco establishments will not "happen again." Stephen Solomon, vice president of the Carson-based restaurant chain, also said the 14 Red Onion restaurants in Southern California began a policy last week of documenting in detail all incidents of patrons being turned away.

Four women who were arrested in connection with a "scanty panty" contest at a Red Onion restaurant in Santa Ana have filed a lawsuit contending that the restaurant management misled them and knew that the event violated a city ordinance.

A Japanese-American woman said Thursday that she was shocked by an incident in June at the Huntington Beach Red Onion, where she and two female friends allegedly were verbally and physically assaulted by a group of white women in the bar and told to speak English. The woman, who asked not to be named, said she suffered a split lip after a group of five or six white women pushed, kicked and hit her and the other two women.